Married to someone with Asperger's/ASD: support thread 11

[Daftasabroom]

New thread.

This thread is for those of us seeking to explore the dynamics of long term relationships with our ND partners. It is a support thread, and a safe space, it does get emotional at times. Avoid sweeping generalisations if possible, try and keep it specific to you and your partner.

ND people are more than welcome, some of us are in ND:ND relationships.

I was thinking of chengeing the thread Aspergers/ASD to ND, which I think might be more appropriate and inculsive, but I've left it as it is as I suspect many people find us by searching for Aspergers and/or ASD.

It's complicated and it's emotional.

The old thread is here

Thanks for the new thread. ❤️

Can i ask people what your autistic partners are like you're unwell? There have been a few times when me and/or DC are unwell and he has tried a little but become v worn down and bored of it v quickly. He also become quite mean. (For example when I had really bad morning sickness he shouted I was in the "loo having a pity party for one"). I am v independent and don't need him for much. But I'm in my late 30s. I keep thinking about us growing older together. I have a fear about what would happen if I became unwell or physically dependent on him. I don't think he would cope at all. I actually fear growing older with him in lots of ways. Can anyone relate?

Following with interest

@Mettlez Yes, I can relate. It's why I started contributing to the last thread. I am in my 50s and about to go in for major surgery in mid-June. Worried about how it will go being reliant on DH, who I've been with for 24 years. Like you, I am very independent generally. I will let you know....

@Forgoodnesssakemeagain I don't think you were being over the top no. That's almost 2 pints, and I would have thought could easily have put him over the limit, or at least borderline. Why risk it?

Thank you. I have tried to search what the limit is and it’s confusing. I feel down as his response was to be moody for the next hour and then I asked what the matter was and he said I was always jumping on him. I asked for an example and he said not letting him have the beer.
he often makes me
sound unreasonable hence we always wondering if I am being unreasonable but he didn’t need the two bottles surely. Could have had one fetched tea and had more..

"Could have had one fetched tea and had more.." Yes - why not do that? What was his reasoning?

That I was telling him what to do.
he said it would be out of his system. But in essence he argues it’s the way I speak to him and that he is a grown man and can make his own decisions

DH finds it stressful if I'm ill as there's change, uncertainty and less money.

When the kids were younger he also had to do more cooking if I was unwell. He'd bring me food, drinks or medicine, but only if I was specific and -I learnt the hard way - if I said by when.

My kids are now old enough to cook for themselves, and even for me.

I worry what retirement will be like when I get old and less able to look after myself.

@Forgoodnesssakemeagain Yes, he's a grown man and can make his own decisions, but those decisions also affect his wife (and kids, if you have any).

I do think my DH, and probably other autistic people, struggle with this to a greater or lesser degree. I feel like a lot of the issues I have in my marriage are due to his struggle with that concept. I posted recently about struggling to get him to discuss making a will. He didn't understand why I didn't just go and make a will if I wanted to, and why I wanted to discuss it with him and for it to be a joint decision. We own a house together and are co-directors of a business, not to mention having a child. Things I do affect him. Things he does affect me.

If your DH lost his license, or worse, had a crash and killed someone and got sent to prison, it would affect you. So, you're entitled to an opinion on his behaviour and to express it, as far as I'm concerned anyway!

@NDornotND My DH can't see his impact on others; if I try to explain it he thinks either I'm imagining it or, if I can prove it, that the other person is being oversensitive 🙁. It's happened so many times with friends, family, neighbours....

@Mettlez yes, this is a big problem for my DH as well. When I am ill he is very short with me and seethes with unexpressed rage. It’s not just a matter of thoughtlessness or not thinking to ask how I am / offer a cup of tea, but a real contempt and almost hatred. I put it down to his need for me always to be OK / neutral in order for his own nervous system to be regulated. It’s as though I am giving off some sort of not-OK pheromone that provokes an aggressive instinct in him.

I can imagine, in the future, my DH being furious about having to call the undertaker because I’m dead and therefore unavailable to do it myself. I can imagine him not knowing how to find the number for an undertaker. Or not being able to decide which undertaker to call, and in the meantime my cadaver just rots in another room while he diverts his mind to something more interesting. 😂😳

It would be funny if it weren’t so possible (based on other life events where he has behaved in some pretty inhumane ways due to shutdown / meltdown). It’s these little pockets of abjection, these weird trap doors into unthinkable awfulness, underneath what looks and feels like a functional - and often happy - relationship, that others can’t really understand.

@Bunnyhair 😟🙁😢🫂

DH is just a pain. He simply doesn’t do illness and can’t comprehend anything that doesn’t fall into a neat box.

So ill for a day with high fever - OK if you stay in bed. But dont expect cups if yea etc….
Anything else?

He was grumbling his dad should really get up and move instead of staying in his armchair. His dad was in the last stages of cancer.
Hes been short with me because I wasn’t cooking. At the time, I had severe ME. But he left to go in hols fir a week leaving me with nothing prepared in the freezer…
He is moaning that his sister can’t have that much issues with her knee because she is doing X and Y. She is due a knee replacement.

So yes, getting older or more severe again with dh worries me.
Hed need very specific instruction to ‘know’ what to do. It worked when I gave birth to dc2. But I’m not sure it would work now, simply because our relationship has deteriorated so I’m not sure if he’d have the ‘good will’ to actually follow those instructions.

@Bunnyhair The thing is, what is different about that behaviour from men who are simply neurotic, or who think of their partners as household appliances that have the audacity to malfunction every now & again? I assume these characteristics are more often seen in autistic men then?

My partner is hopeless when I’m ill. I have a long term chronic condition and i dont even talk to him about it anymore and just look after myself and order groceries/ready meals etc to be delivered. He’d never once think about picking up the slack re cooking/laundry and god forbid he bought me a bunch of flowers or a bar of chocolate.

its funny actually as when he is ill he makes SUCH a performance about it as if the world is ending, and also will not take any painkillers etc.

He would actually have no idea whats going on with my health, its quite depressing, i don’t think he knows I get chemo, or what meds i am on or anything.

I can only say what my ASD / PDA husband does and what I think underlies it - and he’s certainly neurotic! Which people of any neurotype can be, for sure.

But he certainly doesn’t have any ideological beliefs about women being household appliances; the way he treats most people is kind and compassionate and he doesn’t recognise himself in my descriptions of his behaviour when I’m ill - he can’t see what he does in the moment, and can’t deal with hearing that he has caused hurt, so he reverts to his ideals: I am not a person who is mean or uncaring. Therefore what you have perceived here must be wrong. Because that is not who I am: I am more caring than most people I know!

I think he has real trouble processing new information. So when for example our DC is ill, he flat out cannot accept that it’s happening, because his static belief is that our DC is healthy. Same with our pets - our cat has been literally bleeding from his ears and DH insisted he was Ok because, I think, he hadn’t been able to process the new information coming at him from his senses, and he needs things to be ‘OK’ and ‘as they always are’ in order to be able to cope.

Also, @EarthSight , my general sense is that sometimes my DH, who is very high masking, is guided in social interactions by (a) abstract principles of what is right and good and a sense of himself as someone who values fairness and morality and (b) sophisticated algorithms he’s put together through observations of how people interact with one another.

And when he doesn’t have enough observational data to have come up with an algorithm, or when he is emotionally or sensorily overwhelmed, he reverts to an instinctual, reflexive threat response - and his vibe is either aggressive (fight), denial (flight), or total shutdown (freeze) which gets retrospectively justified by his conviction that he is a person who values fairness and morality, and therefore is not capable of behaving in ways that others may find hurtful

He never behaves aggressively in terms of shouting or violence. But there are times when a feeling of rage just steams off him, or he snaps and says something very patronising or generally shitty. And for whatever reason my being ill brings this out in him.

I think this is because he is not able to self-regulate and he needs me to be ‘OK / neutral / same as always’ in order to stay out of a nervous system threat response most of the time.

It sucks. But it’s not quite as simple as his just being a turd.

From what’s I’ve seen both in dh and in FIL, it’s not about thinking that their partners are household appliances.
Dh, fur example, HAS stepped up re he, cooking etc…. But it took him a LONG TIME to accept im ill or I need a wheelchair etc…

Both dh and FIL, it’s more that what they see doesn’t match THEIR idea of being ill. There is also the overwhelm around how to deal with the emotions, the change in routine (FIL really struggled with that when MIL got had heart surgery for example. He got quite cross she was ill because she could do her usual routine) and simply knowing how to react.

DH is a pain because he is avoidant (on anything and everything) and this is is way to deal with the ‘whatever I’m saying/doing usually doesn’t land well so better stay silent and ignore’.

i wouldn’t be surprised if it is happening more in men. But that, imo, is coming from pressure of society/different parenting/how autism shows up in men vs women

My H cannot cope with me being ill, it completely unbalances him. In his head, I should be up and available for all chores/ activities I’ve told him many times that I’ve been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I’ve explained many times what that entails. He hasn’t listened/ processed, so every time I tell him it’s new. And because he doesn’t have that condition, it doesn’t exist for him.

H sees himself as being fair and generally “a good chap”. He would tell you that he does his fair share of household chores. But in fact he Cherry picks, does what he likes doing, which doesn’t include cleaning bathrooms and toilets.

today was a good example, I was cooking lunch, he decided to hoover, then noticed that the vac wasn’t picking up, so he abandoned, and i had to sort out the vac because he doesn’t know how to, because he isn’t interested enough to learn.

tbh it’s like living with a teenager. (And I’ve lived with 3!)
im at the end of my tether with him, not helped by we’ve just moved .

but thanks for letting me rant!

This has got me wondering about myself and mine.
I'm awaiting ADHD assessment and can dash around doing plenty talking loads.
Dh is more like a 60 something teen.
Avoids adult conversations,get easily frustrated or angry and doesn't think to thank people for gifts or seem glad to receive them at Xmas.
He has the same packed lunch everyday and keeps himself to himself absorbed by the TV.
I feel like I live alone or worse still have to supervise him.
Keeping in touch with adult dcs he needs reminding.
He never made an attempt with our ds at home so the relationship was v distant.
Looking at this thread rings some bells for me.

Thank you for everyone who has replied. Sorry I disappeared for a few days - it's been another full on weekend. Thanks for the new thread and sorry the tags aren't actually working in my reply.

@DrawersOnTheDoors I'm not sure my DH is unable to describe emotions. I think he can do that. It's more making connections between cause and effect that trouble him. For example, working late at night means I don't get enough sleep, which means I'm irritable the next day. He recognises that he didn't sleep well, he recognises he's irritable but he refuses to recognise the connection.

@WhereTheBubbles I'm sorry to hear you're also struggling with your husband. Yes, the respect thing... I get that a lot. I keep telling myself that I signed up for sickness and health. But I look in the mirror and I see my mother who was worn down by my alcoholic father, unable to leave because she kept telling herself she signed up for this. I'm not quite at the considering leaving stage but something needs to change or I might get there.

@Flittingaboutagain gosh yes, what you said about partnership!!!

I have talked to DH about autistic burnout and what we could do about it. But in the end, it just turned into me making suggestions again and him not actually taking anything on board, no actual plan. I do understand that he needs time to process and I give him that. But at the end of the day, I feel like a mother to a teenager who has to be nagged to get his life sorted. He's amazing at his job, which ironically involves the general public and lots of customer service. I'm sure it's extremely draining and I understand he probably doesn't want to talk more when he's home. But it does sting to know that on the one hand he's this high performing, super capable guy outside of 'our' life and then I get the other one who can't say a full sentence and talk to me about....anything really at the moment.

Just checking in x

But in the end, it just turned into me making suggestions again and him not actually taking anything on board, no actual plan.

^ this is so difficult to cope with when it's the rule rather than exception. My husband has agreed to various conversations about improving our life but this is basically what they boil down to. We never get into the planning detail because we're sabotaged by high defensiveness.

I do wonder about what life would be like if my husband had a less demanding job. Would he have more to give to us? He talks about needing to be himself at home, which I totally get. So I imagine that means, because he can't verbalise it, that he masks at work and they get the best of him (although not the true him?).

I want more than anything to have the life we imagined. In sickness and health is one thing but with most sicknesses both people understand what you're dealing with and work together, or one isn't able to participate as is too poorly. Sometimes it's like I need to manage our lives as if he wasn't here but it's harder because he is and I don't want to exclude him from the team... although he doesn't realise there's a game on...

@Flittingaboutagain my DH has a pretty undemanding job and when he’s not working he spends most of his time engrossed in his hobbies. So based on my experience I don’t think a less demanding job results in more energy for / interest in family relationships or the daily tasks of life. That stuff is always the absolute last priority for my DH - it’s a distraction from what he’d rather be doing and It involves decisions about things that make him anxious or overwhelmed or bored to think about.